


Waiting

by JosieCarioca



Series: The Soren Snape Chronicles [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Childhood Friends, F/M, Gen, Light Angst, Sad, Short & Sweet, Yearning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-20 20:13:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30010311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JosieCarioca/pseuds/JosieCarioca
Summary: Soren Snape has chosen a lonely path for himself that not even his closest friend can help him walk. (Soren Snape x Audrey Blake)
Relationships: Soren Snape / Audrey Blake
Series: The Soren Snape Chronicles [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1445878
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	Waiting

“Soren, are you alive?”

Soren opened his eyes and looked around, searching for that familiar voice. He didn't know the place around him. It looked nice enough, though. A small livingroom, with teal colored walls covered in classic movie posters and a moon themed tapestry hanging next to a tall bookcase, loads of colorful cushions and, in front of him, a square coffe table with food and cooking themed hardcovers and a notebook filled with a round and small handwritting he knew all too well. He found himself laying on a soft white couch, “Golden Girls” was playning on the TV in front of him.

He sat up, feeling as if the room was moving around him like a ship in open sea. His clothes were sticking to him, tight and uncomfortable and his mouth was so dry he felt a bitter taste in his tongue. He didn´t remember drinking any water since right after curtain call.

Soren heard the sound of something frying, before the smell hit him. His stomach growled. He couldn't remember when he had last eaten anything that day.

“You´re getting glitter all over my couch.” that voice...Soren shook his head, suddenly angry at himself. How had he ended up here of all places? Idiot!

“Audrey, I...” he called out but his head felt like it just about split in two when he raised his voice. “I mean...how did I...”

“Here...” the voice approached. He looked up and there she was. Audrey, in a dusty pink turtleneck wool dress that hugged her plump figure, black leggings and boots, her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, with thick bangs framing her roud, dollish face. She looked like she was either going to a date or coming back home from one when he, at least he assumed, crashed-landed at her door.

She held a plate in front of his face and it smelled something like heaven is supposed to smell.

“This is what you eat when you're flat on your arse drunk, if I recall correctly. Rashers, eggs benedict and your mother's cheddar, chive and potato pancakes. Right?”

“You...know how to make mam´s pancakes? ” he smiled, hoping foolishly that small talk would delay the earfull he was about to get. “She never gave anybody this recipe. Not even my cousins.”

“I lived with your parents for a whole year remember? I've seen auntie Lyn make this more times than I can count.”

Even though he felt like somebody had taken an axe to his skull and split it clean in two, Soren had to smile.

“Thank you. You didn't have to.”

“I sort of did have to, though” she let out, sounding tired “I found you laying on my doorstep, looking healf dead. Trust me, I was tempted to just walk around you and leave you there, but then what would I say next time I visit your parents? Besides, my landlord and neighbours wouldn't be too happy. Here, you´re going to need this. You must be dehydrated.”

She put a gallon of water on the table in fronto of him. Soren shugged nearly half of it before he could even begin to think about eating.

“Now, pray tell...what has gotten into you?” she crossed her arms and stood before him, looking far taller than her 5 feet, maybe 5'3 including the boots. Soren looked at her, pleased to notice she had put on weight. She looked like her normal self again, he thought. Last time he'd seen her she looked gaunt, almost.

“What do you mean?”

“What do I mean? Is it a normal occurence for you to prance about town drunk off you mind and pass out in front of people´s doors dressed like Beetlejuice and Dr. Frank'n'Furter's lovechild?”

“Oh, this!” Soren looked down at himself, finally remembering...

The effin' costume. Yeah, she was right. Her neighbours wouldn't be none too pleased to see a 6´2 man in full make-up wearing a leather corset-garter combo with stockings and high heels under a stripped trenchcoat passed out drunk in the hallway.

“I was...working.”

“Working? Is this an honest-to-God opera costume, or the Ministry for Magic had you go undercover in a fetish brothel?”

“Costume. The Ministry doesn´t usually have me dress up nice and sexy when they want to get me fucked. Hardly pay me as well as they should for it either.”

“What opera are you in this time around?”

“Orphée aux enfers...Our director decided to give the Kosky version a run for its money, so of course genderfuck drag was the way to go. Because why the fuck not? ”

“We're just going to pretend like you didn't love the idea...” she smirked. That was good...he hoped.

“Well, yeah, we decided to have a few drinks after the performance, and Henri thought it would be hilarious to just go out partying in full costume.”

“Who?”

“Henri Fournier...he played Orpheus”

“Of course...” Audrey, sighed, no longer amused.

“He's a riot, you should meet him.” Stop digging, Soren. She´s already mad at you, no need to act like a bufoon.

“And you should shower and change.”

“I´m afraid I don't have anything to change into...Unless, what's his name, your...”

“Ethan, his name is Ethan.”

“Yeah, him, unless he doesn´t mind me borrowing his things...”

“I´ll see if he left something here...”

“Left...I thought you two were...”

“He moved out.”

“When was that? Last we talked you we...”

“Come on, finish eating go have a shower, I'll find something for you to wear.”

“Hey, Shortcake, I...” He let out without even thinking. It had been so long since he last called her that, years maybe, but somehow it just poured from his lips.

“Don't...call me that.”

“I'm sorry...I really am. About this whole thing as well, I really don't know how I ended up at your door, I would never...”

“You don't have to apologize. Just eat, take your shower and...” she sighed “...we´ll see.”

…

Soren was tripping over himself so badly Audrey had half a mind to offer help. But eventually he got himself to the bathroom. She glued her ear to the door, half expecting to hear him collapse inside. The sound of the water running reassured her enough to step away and try to find something for him to wear, hoping Ethan had forgotten at least a pair of shorts or something.

Typical Soren to put her in this situation without even thinking. He never did think, did he? Just did whatever he wanted to do and everything else be damned. Nevermind that his parents were constantly worried sick about him, that his sister had to keep calling him to remind him he had a family and he should go see them sometime. Audrey was almost sure neither his father nor his mother knew what he was up to.

That he was spying for the. ministry.

His father would never allow it.

Audrey had been only a spectator, entirely foreign to their world of magic and wars no one of her kind was supposed to know, but she knew well enough, apparently even better than Soren, that it was a disastrous idea for the son of Severus Snape to be a spy. To collect inteligence about the very same criminals who still had a reward out for his father's head. Soren was born with a target on his back. Even as a child, Death Eaters had tried to get to him, the same with his sister, Eloise. And why wouldn't they? What better revenge on the man who brought down their leader than to harm his children? Audrey knew from hearing whispers and bits and pieces of conversations when she had lived with his parents in Glencoe, right after deciding to go no contact with her mother. She knew from what Eloise told her, in a vain, desperate attempt to get her to help knock some sense into her brother.

But Audrey also knew there was nobody on earth who could keep Soren from doing what he wanted. Sometimes she was tempted to tell Severus and Evelyn what he was doing behind their back. If they knew...They thought Soren was travelling around the world singing. A successful baritone, touring Salzburg, Paris, New York, Lord knew where else. Surely that shouldn´t prevent him from coming home now and then, however...But he would go months without showing up, so his parents, maybe, just thought that if he didn´t show up for Christmas or Easter it was because he was somewhere in a nightclub or a bar, partying. And sometimes that was true, but not always. At times, she wondered how and when they would find out, and hoped it wasn´t through some tragedy.

But...sometimes she also wondered if they didn't already know. If they were just waiting for him to finally be honest with them. Maybe neither Severus nor Evelyn could bring themselves to believe Soren would do that to them, so they acted like they didn't suspect, when in reality, they knew. Maybe they were just hoping he'd show himself worthy of their trust. Just waiting for him to come around.

So Audrey said nothing. It wasn't her place to, after all. If Eloise hadn´t, then she certainly had no right.

She finally found something. And old t-shirt and some pajama pants. Good thing Ethan was tall, she thought. This would do for Soren to at least make it back home, or wherever he was staying in London. Come to think of it...She shook her head and left the clothes on the bed where he could find once he was done showering.

“Soren?” She called once the water stopped running and she could hear him in her bedroom.

“Yeah?” he sounded a bit more sober.

“I'll call your sister, do you have her girlfriend's number? Maybe they can pick you up.”

Soren didn't answer answer immediately. Instead he took his time to get dressed and came back to the livingroom, sat on the couch and took another swig of water from the bottle.

“So, should I call her?”

“I would literally rather you hand me over to a dementor.”

“Maybe if I knew how. Eloise is my next best choice.”

“Eloise will never let me hear the end of it.”

“She wouldn'r be wrong, now would she?”

He didn't answer. He just made that face. That face he put on when he knew he was wrong, when he knew he had no good excuse. The corners of his mouth turned slightly upwards in an odd, clumsy smile, and his nostril flared slightly as he breathed out, then he looked away. Thinking of the next joke, of the charming comment that would deflect questioning, the next change of subject. Had been that way since he was a boy. Soren always knew when to leave an argument well enough alone. This way he wouldn't have to admit he was wrong.

“As soon as my head doesn´t feel like the the 1812 overture is playing on surround sound inside my skull, I can see myself out.” she shrugged with that devil may care grin that could get him whatever he wanted.

Audrey sighed. She didn´t have the energy to argue, And true to be told, if she hadn't found him passed out drunk at her door after nearly a year of no contact whatsoever, she would be happy he was there. Wasn´t this what they used to do, back when things were different? Staying up at night, huddled up on the couch, watching old TV programmes reruns till the wee hours of the night? She missed that. She missed having Soren around, she missed his stupid jokes, his impromptu performances. She missed him singing “Largo al factotum” early in the morning as he shaved, his voice filling her bathroom till the upstairs neighbours complained.

But she didn´t miss what came with it. She didn´t miss the disappearances, the weeks and months without a single phone call, the excuses, the worry, the panic...

“You already ruined my couch with all that sodding makeup” she sighed, sitting next to him “Might as well spend the night. But you´ll have to be out before noon. I´m working the lunch shift this week.”

“How's that going? Mam told me you made it to sous-chef.”

“Yeah, which sounds impressive until you realize it just means I'm the first in line to be verbally abused when Bastianinni wakes up on the wrong side of the bed.”

“I worked with a Bastianinni once...It was for the best sharp knives are not part of our line of work, or the whole cast would have used him for target practice, down to the children's choir. When a tenor decides to be a diva, oof...”

“So, you´ve been talking to your mother?”

“Yeah, I called her and dad last week from Salzburg...to apologize for not showing up for Christmas again. She told me you were there.”

“I was. I assume that's how you got my address...”

“I...I mean...is not like she” Soren stammered like a little boy caught with his hand in the biscuit tin.

“Did you really think your mother would give you my address if I didn't tell her it was ok?” Audrey smiled “I´m just surprised you asked.”

“Why wouldn't I ask?”

“You tell me...For the past four years I´ve seen more of your parents and your sister than I´ve seen you. And you don't call anybody, just go off for months on end...”

“You know why that is...”

“I do. That´s why I don't wait for you anymore. It's pointless. But then when I give up waiting, you decide to show up.”

“Is not like I planned to just...”

“You never do.”

“Audrey, I...”

“I´ll get you a pillow and some covers, it's getting late.” She couldn't let him speak. If he started he'd take her in again. And before she knew it, she would be waiting again...for a phone call, a message, waiting for that moment she'd finally be fully a part of his world. A moment that would never come, no matter how long she waited. Not for her and not for anybody else. Soren had chosen a rocky path that only fit the steps of one person: himself. She couldn´t walk with him, and it would be fooolish to wait for him to come back any time soon.

“You said you were working lunch shift tomorrow.” the sweetness on his voice reached her as she got up from the couch, disarming. “Can´t you stay a little while longer?”


End file.
